Ninth Key

Or was he? A man who fainted just because a girl poked him with a pencil didn't exactly seem the sort to successfully carry out a murder. Was it possible he hadn't been suffering from his current "disorder" when he'd offed Mrs. Fiske and those other people?

I was still trying to puzzle all of this out when Marcus, who'd shepherded me to the front door, produced my coat. He helped me into it, then said, "Aikiku will drive you home, Miss Simon."

I looked around and saw another Japanese guy, this one all in black, standing by the front door. He bowed politely to me.

"And let's get one thing straight."

Marcus was still speaking to me in fatherly tones. He seemed irritated, but not really mad.

"What happened here tonight," he went on, "was very strange, it's true. But no one was injured...."

He must have noticed my gaze skitter toward Tad still passed out on the couch, since he added, "Not seriously hurt, anyway. And so I think it would behoove you to keep your mouth shut about what you've seen here. Because if you should take it into your head to tell anyone about what you've seen here," Marcus went on in a manner one might almost call friendly, "I will, of course, have to tell your parents about that unfortunate prank you played on Mr. Beaumont … and press formal assault charges against you, of course."

My mouth dropped open. I realized it, after a second, and snapped it shut again.

"But he - " I began.

Marcus cut me off. "Did he?" He looked down at me meaningfully. "Did he really? There are no witnesses to that fact, save yourself. And do you really believe anyone is going to take the word of a little juvenile delinquent like yourself over the word of a respectable businessman?"

The jerk had me, and he knew it.

He smiled down at me, a little triumphant twinkle in his eye.

"Good night, Miss Simon," he said.

Proving once again that the life of a mediator just ain't all it's cracked up to be: I didn't even get to stay for dessert.

CHAPTER 15

Dropped off with about as much ceremony as a rolled-up newspaper on a Monday morning, I trudged up the driveway. I'd been a little scared Marcus had changed his mind about not pressing charges and that our house might have been surrounded by cops there to haul me in for assaulting Mr. B.

But no one jumped out at me, gun drawn, from behind the bushes, which was a good sign.

As soon as I walked in, my mother was all over me, wanting to know what it had been like at the Beaumonts - What had we had for dinner? What had the decor been like? Had Tad asked me to the prom?

I declared myself too sleepy to talk and, instead, went straight up to my room. All I could think about was how on earth I was going to prove to the world that Red Beaumont was a cold-blooded killer.

Well, okay, maybe not a cold-blooded one, since he evidently felt remorse for what he'd done. But a killer, just the same.

I had forgotten, of course, about my new roommate. As I approached my bedroom door, I saw Max sitting in front of it, his huge tongue lolling. There were scratch marks all up and down the door where he'd tried clawing his way in. I guess the fact that there was a cat in there was more overpowering than the fact that there was also a ghost in there.

"Bad dog," I said when I saw the scratch marks.

Instantly, Doc's bedroom door across the hall opened.

"Have you got a cat in there?" he demanded, but not in an accusing way. More like he was really interested, from a scientific point of view.

"Um," I said. "Maybe."

"Oh. I wondered. Because usually Max, you know, he stays away from your room. You know why."

Doc widened his eyes meaningfully. When I'd first moved in, Doc had very chivalrously offered to trade rooms with me, since mine, he'd noted, had a distinct cold spot in it, a clear indication that it was a center for paranormal activity. While I'd chosen to keep the room, I'd been impressed by Doc's self-sacrifice. His two elder brothers certainly hadn't been as generous.

"It's just for one night," I assured him. "The cat, I mean."

"Oh," Doc said. "Well, that's good. Because you know that Brad does suffer from an adverse reaction to feline dander. Allergens, or allergy-producing substances, cause the release of histamine, an organic compound responsible for allergic symptoms. There are a variety of allergens, such as contactants - like poison oak - and airborne, like Brad's sensitivity to cat dander. The standard treatment is, of course, avoidance, if at all possible, of the allergen."

I blinked at him. "I'll keep that in mind," I said.

Doc smiled. "Great. Well, good night. Come on, Max."

He hauled the dog away, and I went into my room.

To find that my new roommate had flown the coop. Spike was gone, and the open window told me how he'd escaped.

"Jesse," I muttered.

Jesse was always opening and closing my windows. I hauled them open at night, only to find them securely closed come morning. Usually I appreciated this since the morning fog that rolled in from the bay was often freezing.

But now his good intentions had resulted in Spike escaping.

Well, I wasn't going looking for the stupid cat. If he wanted to come back, he knew the way. If not, I figured I'd done my duty, at least so far as Timothy was concerned. I'd found his wretched pet and brought it to safety. If the stupid thing refused to stay, that wasn't my problem.

I was just getting ready to climb into the hot, steaming bath I'd run for myself - I think best when submerged in soapy water - when the phone rang. I didn't answer it, of course, because the phone is hardly ever for me. It's usually either Debbie Mancuso - despite Dopey's protests that they were not seeing each other - or one of the multitudes of giggly young women who called for Sleepy . . . who was never home due to his grueling pizza-delivery schedule.

This time, however, I heard my mother holler up the stairs that it was Father Dominic for me. My mother, in spite of what you might think, doesn't consider it the least bit weird that I am constantly getting phone calls from the principal of my school. Thanks to my being vice president of my class, and chairwoman of the Restore Junipero Serra's Head committee, there are actually quite a few completely innocuous reasons why the principal might need to call me.

But Father D never calls me at home to discuss anything remotely school related. He only calls when he wants to ream me out for something to do with mediating.

Before I picked up the extension in my room, I wondered - irritably, since I was wearing nothing but a towel and suspected my bath water would be cold by the time I finally got into it - what I had done this time.

And then, as if I'd already slid into that bath, and found it freezing, chills went up my spine.

Jesse. My hasty discussion with Jesse before I'd left for Tad's. Jesse had gone to Father Dominic.

No, he wouldn't have. I'd told him not to. Not unless I wasn't back by midnight. And I'd gotten home by ten. Earlier, even. Nine forty-five.

That couldn't be it, I told myself. That couldn't possibly be it. Father Dominic did not know about Jesse. He did not know a thing.

Still, when I said hello, I said it tentatively.

Father Dominic's voice was warm. "Oh, hello, Susannah," he gushed. "So sorry to call so late, only I needed to discuss yesterday's student council meeting with you - "

"It's okay, Father D," I said. "My mom hung up the downstairs phone."

Father Dominic's voice changed completely. It was no longer warm. Instead, it was very indignant.

"Susannah," he said. "Delighted as I am to find that you are all right, I would just like to know when, if ever, you were going to tell me about this Jesse person."

Oops.

"He tells me he has been living in your bedroom since you moved to California several weeks ago, and that you have been perfectly aware, all this time, of that fact."

I had to hold the phone away from my ear. I'd always known, of course, that Father Dominic would be mad when he found out about Jesse. But I never guessed he'd go ballistic.

"This is the most outrageous thing I've ever heard." Father D was really warming to the subject. "What would your poor mother say if she knew? I simply don't know what I'm going to do with you, Susannah. I thought you and I had established a certain amount of trust in our relationship, but all this time, you've been keeping this Jesse fellow secret - "

Fortunately, at that moment, the call-waiting went off. I said, "Oh, hold on a minute, would you, Father D?"

As I hit the receiver, I heard him say, "Do not put me on hold while I am speaking to you, young lady - "

I'd been expecting Debbie Mancuso to be on the other line, but to my surprise, it was Cee Cee.

"Hey, Suze," she said. "I was doing a little more research on your boyfriend's dad - "

"He's not my boyfriend," I said, automatically. Especially not now.

"Yeah, okay, your would-be boyfriend, then. Anyway, I thought you might be interested to know that after his wife - Tad's mom - died ten years ago, things really started going downhill for Mr. B."

I raised my eyebrows. "Downhill? Like how? Not financially. I mean, if you ever saw where they live …"

"No, not financially. I mean that after she died - breast cancer, diagnosed too late to treat; don't worry, nobody killed her - Mr. B sort of lost interest in all of his many companies, and started keeping to himself."

Aha. This was probably when the first onset of his "disorder" began.

"Here's the really interesting part, though," Cee Cee said. I could hear her tapping on her keyboard. "It was around this time that Red Beaumont handed over almost all of his responsibilities to his brother."

"Brother?"

"Yeah. Marcus Beaumont."

I was genuinely surprised. Marcus was related to Mr. Beaumont? I'd thought him a mere flunky. But he wasn't. He was Tad's uncle.

"That's what it says. Mr. Beaumont - Tad's dad - is still the figurehead, but this other Mr. Beaumont is the one who's really been running things for the past ten years."

I froze.

Oh my God. Had I got it wrong?

Maybe it hadn't been Red Beaumont at all who'd killed Mrs. Fiske. Maybe it had been Marcus. The other Mr. Beaumont.

Did Mr. Beaumont kill you? That's what I'd asked Mrs. Fiske. And she'd said yes. But Mr. Beaumont to her might have been Marcus, not poor, vampire-wannabe Red Beaumont.

No, wait. Tad's father had told me straight out that he felt sorry for having killed all those people. That had been his motivation for inviting me over all along: he'd been hoping I'd help him communicate with his victims.

But Tad's father was clearly a couple of fries short of a Happy Meal. I don't think he could have killed a cockroach, let alone another human being.

No, whoever had killed Mrs. Fiske and those other people had been smart enough to cover his tracks . . . and Tad's dad was no Daniel Boone, let me tell you.

His brother, on the other hand …

"I'm getting a really bad feeling about all this," Cee Cee was saying. "I mean, I know we can't prove anything - and despite what Adam thinks, it's highly unlikely anything my aunt Pru would have to contribute would be permissible in court - but I think we have a moral obligation - "

The call-waiting went off again. Father D. I'd forgotten all about Father D. He'd hung up in a rage and was calling back.

"Look, Cee Cee," I said, still feeling sort of numb. "We'll talk about it tomorrow at school, okay?"

"Okay," Cee Cee said. "But I'm just letting you know, Suze, I think we've stumbled onto something big here."

Big? Try gargantuan.

But it wasn't Father Dominic on the other line, I found out, after I pressed down on the receiver:

It was Tad.

"Sue?" he said. He still sounded a little groggy.

And he still seemed to have only a slight clue what my name was.

"Um, hi, Tad," I said.

"Sue, I am so sorry," he said. Grogginess aside, he sounded as if he meant it. "I don't know what happened. I guess I was more tired than I thought. You know, at practice they run us pretty hard, and some nights I just conk out sooner than others...."

Yeah, I said to myself. I bet.

"Don't worry about it," I said. Tad had way bigger things to concern himself with than falling asleep during a date.

"But I want to make it up to you," Tad insisted. "Please let me. What are you doing Saturday night?"

Saturday night? I forgot all about how this kid was related to a possible serial killer. What did that matter? He was asking me out. On a date. A real date. On Saturday night. Visions of candlelight and French kissing danced in my head. I could hardly speak, I was so flattered.

"I have a game," Tad went on, "but I figured you could come watch me play, and then afterward we could maybe get a pizza with the rest of the guys or something."

My excitement died a rapid little death.

Was he kidding? He wanted me to come watch him play basketball? Then go out with him and the rest of the team? For pizza? I wasn't even burger material? I mean, at this point, I'd settle for Sizzler, for crying out loud.

"Sue," Tad said when I didn't say anything right away. "You aren't mad at me, are you? I mean, I really didn't mean to fall asleep on you."

What was I thinking, anyway? It would never work out between the two of us. I mean, I'm a mediator. His dad's a vampire. His uncle's a killer. What if we got married? Think how our kids would turn out....

Confused. Way confused.

Kind of like Tad.

"It wasn't that you were boring me, or anything," he went on. "Really. Well, I mean, that thing you were talking about was kind of boring - the thing about that statue with the head that needed gluing back on. That story, I mean. But not you. You're not boring, Susan. That's not why I fell asleep, I swear it."

"Tad," I said, annoyed by how many times he'd felt it necessary to assure me I hadn't been boring him - a sure sign I'd been boring him senseless - and of course by the fact that he could not seem to remember my name. "Grow up."

He said, "Whadduya mean?"

"I mean you didn't fall asleep, okay? You passed out because your dad slipped some Seconal or something into your coffee."

Okay, maybe that wasn't the most diplomatic way to tell the guy his father needed to up his meds. But hey, nobody's going to go around accusing me of being boring. Nobody.

Besides, don't you think he had a right to know?

"Sue," he said, after a moment's pause. Pain throbbed in his voice. "Why would you say something like that? I mean, how could you even think something like that?"

I guess I couldn't blame the poor guy. It was pretty hard to believe. Unless you'd seen it up close and personal the way I had.

"Tad," I said. "I mean it. Your old man . . . his phaser seems set on permanent stun, if you get my drift."

"No," Tad said, a little sullenly, I thought. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Tad," I said. "Come on. The guy thinks he's a vampire."

"He does not!" Tad, I realized, was up to his armpits in some major denial. "You're full of it!"

I decided to show Tad just how full of it I was.

"No offense, buddy," I said, "but next time you're purring on one of those gold chains of yours, you might ask yourself where the money to pay for it came from. Or better yet, why don't you ask your uncle Marcus?"

"Maybe I will," Tad said.

"Maybe you should," I said.

"I will, then," Tad said.

"Fine, then do it."

I slammed down the phone. Then I sat there staring down at it.

What on earth had I just done?

CHAPTER 16

In spite of the fact that I'd nearly killed a man that night, I didn't have too many problems falling asleep.

Seriously.

Okay, so I was tired, all right? I mean, let's face it: I'd had a trying day.

And it wasn't like those phone calls I'd gotten just before I'd gone to bed had helped. Father Dominic was totally mad at me for not having told him sooner about Jesse, and Tad seemed to pretty much hate me now, too.

Oh, and his uncle Marcus? Yeah, possible serial killer. Almost forgot that part.

But seriously, what was I supposed to do? I mean, I'd known perfectly well Father D wasn't going to be thrilled about Jess. And as for Tad, well, if my dad had ever drugged me stupid, I would totally want to know.

I'd done the right thing telling Tad.

Except I did sort of wonder what was going to happen if Tad really did go ask his uncle Marcus what I'd meant about where his money came from. Marcus would probably think it was some obscure reference to Tad's father's mental illness.

I hoped.

Because if he figured out that I suspected the truth - you know, that whole thing about his killing anyone who stood in the way of Beaumont Industries gobbling up as much of the available property in northern California that it possibly could - I had a feeling he wasn't going to take too kindly to it.

But how scared would a big-time player like Marcus Beaumont be of a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl? I mean, really. He had no idea about the whole mediator thing, how I'd actually spoken to one of his victims and confirmed the whole thing.

Well, more or less.

Still, in spite of all that, I did finally get to sleep. I was dreaming that Kelly Prescott had heard about Tad and me being at the Coffee Clutch together, and that she was threatening to veto the decision not to have a spring dance in revenge when a soft thud woke me. I raised my head and squinted in the direction of the window seat.

Spike was back. And he had company.

Jesse, I saw, was sitting next to Spike. To my utter amazement the cat was letting him pet him. That stupid cat who had tried to bite me every time I'd come near him was letting a ghost - his natural enemy - pet him.

And what's more, Spike seemed to like it. He was purring so loud I could hear him all the way across the room.

"Whoa," I said, leaning up on my elbows. "That is one for Ripley's Believe It or Not."

Jesse grinned at me. "I think he likes me," he said.

"Don't get too attached. He can't stay here, you know."

I could have sworn Jesse looked crestfallen. "Why not?"

"Because Dopey's allergic, for one thing," I said. "And because I didn't even ask anyone if it was okay for me to have a cat"

"It is your house now, as well as your brothers'," Jesse said with a shrug.

"Stepbrothers," I corrected him. I thought about what he said, then added, "And I guess I still feel like more of a guest here than an actual occupant."

"Give yourself a century or so." He grinned some more. "And you'll get over it."

"Very funny," I said. "Besides, that cat hates me."

"I'm sure he doesn't hate you," Jesse said.

"Yes, he does. Every time I come near him, he tries to bite me."

"He just doesn't know you," Jesse said. "I will introduce you." He picked up the cat and pointed him in my direction. "Cat," he said. "This is Susannah. Susannah, meet the cat."

"Spike," I said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Spike. That cat's name is Spike."

Jesse put the cat down and looked at him in horror. "That is a terrible name for a cat."

"Yeah," I said. Then I added - strictly conversationally, if you know what I mean - "So I hear you met Father Dominic."

Jesse raised his gaze and let it rest expressionlessly on me. "Why didn't you tell him about me, Susannah?"

I swallowed. What do they do, teach guys that reproachful look at birth, or something? I mean, they all seem to have it down so pat. Except Dopey, that is.

"Look," I said. "I wanted to. Only I knew he was going to freak out. I mean, he's a priest. I didn't figure he'd be too thrilled to hear that I've got a guy - even a dead guy - living in my bedroom." I tried to sound as concerned as I felt. "So, um, I take it you two didn't hit it off?"

"Between your father and the priest," Jesse said, wryly, "I would take your father any time."

"Well," I said. "Don't worry about it. Tomorrow I'll just tell Father Dom about all the times you saved my life, and then he'll just have to deal."

He clearly didn't believe it was going to be that simple if the scowl that appeared on his face was any indication. The sad thing was, he was right. Father D wasn't going to be mollified that easily, and we both knew it.

"Look." I threw back the covers and got up out of bed, padding over to the window seat in my boxers and T-shirt. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, Jesse. I should have told him sooner and introduced the two of you properly. It's my fault."

"It isn't your fault," Jesse said.

"Yes, it is." I sat down next to him, making sure Jesse was between myself and the cat. "I mean, you may be dead, but I haven't got any right to treat you as if you were. That's just plain rude. Maybe what we can do is, you and me and Father Dom can all sit down and have lunch together or something, and then he can see what a nice guy you really are."

Jesse looked at me like I was a mental case. "Susannah," he said. "I don't eat, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. I forgot."

Spike butted Jesse in the arm, and he lifted his hand and began scratching the cat's ears. I felt so bad for Jesse - I mean, think about it: he had been hanging around in that house for a hundred and fifty years before I'd gotten there, with no one to talk to, no one at all - that I suddenly blurted out, "Jesse, if there was any way I could make you not dead, I'd do it."

He smiled, but at the cat, not at me. "Would you?"

"In a minute," I said, and then went on, with complete recklessness, "Except that if you weren't dead, you probably wouldn't want to hang out with me."

That made him look at me. He said, "Of course I would."

"No," I said, examining one of my bare knees in the moonlight. "You wouldn't. If you weren't dead, you'd be in college or something, and you'd want to hang around with college girls, and not boring high school girls like me."

Jesse said, "You aren't boring."

"Oh, yes, I am," I assured him. "You've just been dead so long, you don't know it."

"Susannah," he said. "I know it, all right?"

I shrugged. "You don't have to try to make me feel better. It's okay. I've come to accept it. There are some things you just can't change."

"Like being dead," Jesse said, quietly.

Well, that certainly put a damper on things. I was feeling kind of depressed about everything - the fact that Jesse was dead, and that in spite of this, Spike still liked him better than me, and stuff like that - when all of a sudden Jesse reached out and took hold of my chin - almost exactly the way Tad had that night in his car - between his index finger and thumb and turned my face toward his.

And things suddenly started looking up.

Instead of collapsing in shock - my first instinct - I lifted my gaze to his face. The moonlight that had been filtering into my room through the bay windows was reflected in Jesse's soft dark eyes, and I could feel the heat from his fingers coursing through me.

That's when I realized that in spite of how hard I'd been trying to not to fall in love with Jesse, I wasn't doing a very good job. I could tell this by the way my heart started thudding very hard against my T-shirt when he touched me. It hadn't done that when Tad had touched me in the exact same way.

And I could also tell by the way I instantly started worrying about the fact that he had chosen this particular moment to kiss me, the middle of the night, when it had been hours since I'd brushed my teeth and I was sure I probably had morning breath. How appetizing was that?

But I never discovered whether or not Jesse would have been grossed out by my morning breath - or even if he'd really been going to kiss me at all - because at that moment, that crazy woman who kept insisting Red hadn't killed her suddenly showed up again, shrieking her head off.

I swear I nearly jumped a foot. She was the last person I'd been expecting to see.

"Oh, my God," I cried, slapping my hands over my ears as she let loose like some kind of smoke detector. "What's the matter?"

The woman had been wearing the hood of her gray sweatshirt. Now she pushed it back, and in the moonlight, I could see the tears that had made tracks down her thin, pale cheeks. I couldn't believe I had mistaken her for Mrs. Fiske. This woman was years and years younger, and a heck of a lot prettier.

"You didn't tell him," she said, between sobbing wails.

I blinked. "Yes, I did."

"You didn't!"

"No, I did, I really did." I was shocked by this unfair accusation. "I told him a couple of days ago. Jesse, tell her."

"She told him," Jesse assured the dead woman.

You would think one ghost would take the word of another. But she wasn't having any of it. She cried, "You didn't! And you've got to tell him. You've just got to. It's tearing him up inside."

"Wait a minute," I said. "Red Beaumont is the Red you're talking about, right? Isn't he the one who killed you?"

She shook her head so hard, her hair smacked her cheeks and then stuck there, glued to her skin by her tears. "No," she said. "No! I told you Red didn't do it."

"Marcus, I mean," I amended, quickly. "I know Red didn't do it. He just blames himself for it, right? That's what you want me to tell him. That it wasn't his fault. It was his brother, Marcus Beaumont, who killed you, wasn't it?"

"No!" She looked at me like I was a moron. And I was starting to feel like one. "Not Red Beaumont. Red. Red! You know him."

I know him? I know someone named Red? Not in this life.

"Look," I said. "I need a little more info than that. Why don't we start with introductions. I'm Susannah Simon, okay? And you are … ?"

The look she gave me would have broken the heart of even the coldest mediator.

"You know," she said, with an expression so wounded, I had to look away. "You know...."

And then, when I risked another glance in her direction, she was gone again.

"Um," I said, uncomfortably, to Jesse. "I guess I got the wrong Red."

CHAPTER 17

Okay, I admit it: I wasn't happy.

I mean, seriously. I had invested all that time and effort in Red Beaumont, and he hadn't even been the right guy.

Okay, yeah, so he - or his brother; my money was on his brother - had apparently killed a bunch of people, but I'd stumbled over this fact completely by accident. The ghost who'd originally come to me for help didn't have anything to do with Red Beaumont or even with his brother, Marcus. Her message remained undelivered because I couldn't figure out who she was, even though, apparently, I knew her.

And meanwhile, Mrs. Fiske's killer was still walking around free.

And as if all of that weren't enough, my midnight caller showing up the way she did had completely killed the mood between Jesse and me. He so totally did not kiss me after that. In fact, he acted like he'd never intended to kiss me in the first place, which, considering my luck, is probably the truth. Instead, he asked how my poison oak was progressing.

My poison oak! Yeah, thanks, it's great.

God, I am such a loser.

But you know, I pretended like I didn't care. I got up the next morning and acted like nothing had happened. I put on my best butt-kicking outfit - my black Betsey Johnson miniskirt with black ribbed tights, side-zip Batgirl boots, and purple Armani sweater set - and strutted around my room like all I was thinking about was how I was going to bring Marcus Beaumont to justice. The last thing on my mind, I pretended, was Jesse.

Not like he noticed. He wasn't even around.

But all my strutting around had made me late, and Sleepy was standing at the bottom of the stairs bellowing my name, so even if he'd wanted to, it wouldn't have been such a good thing for Jesse to materialize just then, anyway.

I grabbed my leather jacket and came pounding down the stairs to where Andy was standing shelling out lunch money to each of us as we came by.

"My goodness, Suze," he said when he saw me.

"What?" I demanded, defensively.

"Nothing," he said, quickly. "Here."

I plucked the five-dollar bill from his hand and, casting him one last, curious glance, followed Doc down to the car. When I got there, Dopey took one look at me and let out a howl.

"Oh, my God," he cried, pointing at me. "Run for your lives!"

I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Do you have a problem?" I asked him, coldly.

"Yeah, I do," he sneered at me. "I didn't know it was Halloween."

Doc said, knowingly, "It isn't Halloween, Brad. Halloween isn't for another two hundred and seventy-nine days."

"Tell that to the Queen of the Undead," Dopey said.

I don't know what made me do it. I was in a bad mood, I guess. Everything that had happened the night before, from stabbing Mr. Beaumont to finding out I'd had the wrong man all along - not to mention my discovery that my feelings about Jesse weren't exactly what I'd have liked them to be - came back to me.

And the next thing I knew, I'd turned around and sunk my fist into Dopey's stomach.

He let out a groan and pitched forward, then sprawled out into the grass, gasping for air.

Okay, I admit it. I felt bad. I shouldn't have done it.

But still. What a baby. I mean, seriously. He's on the wrestling team. What are they teaching these wrestlers, anyway? Clearly not how to take a punch.

"Whoa," Sleepy said when he noticed that Dopey was on the ground. "What the hell happened to you?"

Dopey pointed at me, trying to say my name. But all that came out were gasps.

"Aw, Jesus," Sleepy said, looking at me disgustedly.

"He called me," I said, with all the dignity I could muster, "the Queen of the Undead."

Sleepy said, "Well, what do you expect him to say? You look like a hooker. Sister Ernestine's going to send you home if she sees you in that skirt."

I sucked in my breath, outraged. "This skirt," I said, "happens to be by Betsey Johnson."

"I don't care if it's by Betsy Ross. And neither will Sister Ernestine. Come on, Brad, get up. We're going to be late."

Brad got up with elaborate care, as if every movement was causing him excruciating pain. Sleepy didn't look as if he felt too sorry for him. "I told you not to mess with her, sport," was all he said as he slid behind the wheel.

"She sucker-punched me, man," Brad whined. "She can't get away with that."

"Actually," Doc said, pleasantly, as he climbed into the backseat and fastened his seatbelt, "she can. While statistics concerning domestic violence are always difficult to obtain due to low reportage, incidents in which females batter male family members are reported even less, as the victims are almost always too embarrassed to tell members of law enforcement that they have, in fact, been beaten by a woman."

"Well, I'm not embarrassed," Dopey declared. "I'm telling Dad as soon as we get home."

"Go ahead," I said, acidly. I was in a really bad mood. "He's just going to ground you again when I tell him you went ahead and snuck out that night of Kelly Prescott's pool party."

"I did not," he practically screamed in my face.

"Then how is it," I inquired, "that I saw you in her pool house giving Debbie Mancuso's tongue a Jiffy Lube?"

Even Sleepy hooted at that one.

Dopey, completely red with embarrassment, looked as if he might start crying. I licked my finger and made a little slashing motion in the air as if I were writing on a Scoreboard. Suze, one. Dopey, zero.

But Dopey, unfortunately, was the one who had the last laugh.

We were approaching our lines for Assembly - they seriously make every single grade stand outside the school in these lines separated by sex, boys on one side, girls on the other, for fifteen minutes before class officially starts, so they can take attendance and read announcements - when Sister Ernestine blew her whistle at me, and signaled for me to come over to her, where she was standing by the flagpole.

Fortunately, she did this in front of the entire sophomore class - not to mention the freshmen - so that every single one of my peers had the privilege of seeing me get bawled out by a nun for wearing a miniskirt to school.

The upshot of it all was that Sister Ernestine said I had to go home and change.

Oh, I argued. I insisted that a society that valued its members solely for their outward appearance was a society destined for destruction, which was a line I'd heard Doc use a few days earlier when she'd busted him for wearing Levis - there's a strict anti-jeans rule at the Academy.

But Sister Ernestine didn't go for it. She informed me that I could go home and change, or I could sit in her office and help grade the second graders' math quizzes until my mother arrived with a pair of slacks for me.

Oh, that wouldn't be too embarrassing.

Given the alternative, I elected to go home and change - although I argued strenuously on behalf of Ms. Johnson and her designs. A skirt, however, with a hem higher than three inches above the knee is not considered appropriate Academy attire. And my skirt, unfortunately, was more than four inches above my knees. I know because Sister Ernestine took out a ruler and showed me. And the rest of the sophomore class, as well.

And so it was that, with a wave to Cee Cee and Adam, who were leading the class's shouts of encouragement to me - which fortunately drowned out the catcalls Dopey and his friends were making - I shouldered my backpack and left the school grounds. I had, of course, to walk home, since I could not face the indignity of calling Andy for a ride, and I still hadn't figured out whether or not there was such a thing as public transportation in Carmel.

I wasn't too deeply bummed. After all, what had I had to look forward to? Oh, just Father Dominic reaming me out for not telling him about Jesse. I could, I suppose, have distracted him by telling him how wrong he'd been about Tad's dad being a vampire - he just thinks he's one - and what Cee Cee had discovered about his brother, Marcus. That certainly would have gotten him off my back … for a little while, anyway.

But then what? So a couple of environmentalists were missing? That didn't prove anything. So a dead lady had told me a Mr. Beaumont had killed her? Oh, yeah, that'd stand up in court, all right.

Not a lot to go on. We had, in fact, nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Which was what I was feeling like as I strolled along. A big miniskirted zero.

As if whoever was in charge of the weather agreed with me about my loser status, it was sort of raining. It was foggy every morning along the coast in northern California. The fog rolled in from the sea and sat in the bay until the sun burned it all off.

But this morning, on top of the fog, there was this light drizzle coming down. It wasn't so bad at first, but I hadn't gotten farther than the school gates before my hair started curling up. After all the time I'd spent that morning straightening it. I didn't, of course, have an umbrella. Nor, it seemed, did I have much of a choice. I was going to be a drenched, curly-haired freak by the time I walked the two miles - mostly uphill - to the house, and that was the end of it.

Or so I thought. Because as I was passing the school gates, a car pulling in between them slowed.

It was a nice car. It was an expensive car. It was a black car with smoked windows. As I looked at it one of those windows lowered and a familiar face peered out at me from the backseat.

"Miss Simon," Marcus Beaumont said, pleasantly. "Just the person I was looking for. May I have a word?"

And he opened the passenger door invitingly, beckoning for me to come in out of the rain.

Every single one of my mediator neurons fired at once. Danger, they screamed. Run for it, they shrieked.

I couldn't believe it. Tad had done it. Tad had asked his uncle what I'd meant.

And Marcus, instead of shrugging it off, had come here to my school in a car with smoked windows to "have a word" with me.

I was dead meat.

But before I had a chance to spin around and hightail back into the school, where I knew I'd be safe, the passenger doors of Marcus Beaumont's sedan sprang open and these two guys came at me.

Let me just say in my defense that deep down, I never thought Tad would have the guts to do it. I mean, Tad seemed like a nice enough guy, and God knew he was a great kisser, but he didn't seem to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you know what I mean. This, I imagine, is why a girl like Kelly Prescott would find him so appealing: Kelly's used to being the Wusthof. She doesn't welcome competition in that capacity.

But I had obviously underestimated Tad. Not only had he gone to his uncle as I'd suggested, but he'd evidently managed to raise Marcus's suspicions that I knew more than I'd let on.

Way more if the two thugs who were circling me, cutting off any possible chance at escape, were any indication.

My option for flight pretty much voided by these two clowns, I saw that I was going to have to fight. I do not consider myself a slouch in the fighting department. I actually kind of like it, if you haven't figured that out already. Of course, usually I'm fighting ghosts, and not live human beings. But if you think about it, there's not really that much of a difference. I mean, nasal cartilage is nasal cartilage. I was willing to give it a go.

This seemed to come as something of a surprise to Marcus's flunkies. A couple of thickset frat boys who looked as if they were better used to pounding brewskies than people, they were out to impress the boss in a big way.

At least until I threw down my book bag, hooked my foot behind the knee of one them, and brought him down with a ground-shaking thud to the wet asphalt.

While Thug #1 lay there staring up at the overcast sky with a surprised look on his face, I got in an excellent kick to Thug #2. He was too tall for me to get him in the nose, but I knocked the wind out of him by applying my three-inch heel to his rib cage. That had to have hurt, let me tell you. He went spinning around, lost his balance, and hit the ground.

Amateur.

Marcus got out of the car then. He stood with the rain beating down on his fluffy blond hair and went, "You idiot," to Thug #2.

He was right to be upset, if you think about it. I mean, here he'd hired these guys to roust me, and they were doing a thoroughly bad job of it. It just goes to show you can't get good help anymore.

You would think that, with all this going on in front of a pretty popular tourist destination like the Mission - not to mention a school - somebody would have noticed and phoned the cops. You would think that, wouldn't you?

But if you're thinking that, you obviously haven't been in California when it was raining out. I'm not kidding, it's like New York City on New Year's Eve: only the tourists venture outside. Everyone else stays inside and waits until it's safe to come out.

Oh, a couple of cars whizzed by going fifty miles an hour in a twenty-mile-per-hour zone. I was hoping one of them would notice us and decide that two guys on one girl wasn't quite playing fair - even if the girl did look a bit like a hooker.

But our little tussle went on for a surprisingly long time before Marcus - who'd apparently realized what his thugs hadn't, that I wasn't exactly your typical Catholic schoolgirl - cut the whole thing short by laying me out with a totally unfair right to the chin.

I didn't even see him coming. What with the rain and all, my hair was getting plastered to my face, obscuring my peripheral vision. I'd been concentrating on applying a knee to Thug #1's groin - it had been a bad idea, his decision to get up again - while keeping my eye on Thug #2, who kept grabbing for handfuls of my hair - he had obviously gone to the Dopey school of fighting - and hadn't even noticed that Marcus was headed my way.

But suddenly, a heavy hand landed on my shoulder and spun me around. A second later, an explosion sounded in my head. The world tilted sickeningly, and I felt myself stumble. Next thing I knew, I was inside the car, and brakes were squealing.

"Ow," I said when the stars I'd been seeing had receded enough for me to speak. I reached up and touched my jaw. None of my teeth felt loose, but I was definitely going to have a bruise that there wasn't enough Clinique in the world to cover up. "What'd you have to hit me so hard for?"

Marcus just blinked at me expressionlessly from where he sat on the seat beside me. Thug #1 was driving and Thug #2 sat beside him in the front seat. Judging from the backs of their extremely thick necks, they were unhappy. It couldn't have been too pleasant sitting there with all those various body parts throbbing with pain, in wet, muddy clothes. My leather jacket had fortunately protected me from the worst of the rain. My hair, however, was undoubtedly a lost cause.

We were going fast down the highway. Water sluiced on either side of us as we barreled through what had become a steady downpour. There wasn't a soul on the highway but us. I tell you, you've never seen people as scared of a little bit of rain as native Californians. Earthquakes? They're nothing. But a hint of drizzle and it's head-between-the-knees time.

"Look," I said. "I think you should know something. My mother is a reporter for WCAL in Monterey, and if anything happens to me, she is going to be all over you like ants on a Jolly Rancher."

Marcus, clearly bored by my posturing, pulled back his coat sleeve and looked at his Rolex. "She won't," he said, tonelessly. "No one knows where you are. It was quite fortuitous, your leaving the school at the very moment we were pulling up to it. Did another one of your ghosts" - he said the word with a sarcasm I suppose he found scathing - "warn you that we were coming?"

Scowling, I muttered, "Not exactly." No way was I going to tell him I'd been sent home for violating the school dress code. I'd been humiliated enough for one day.

"Just what were you doing there, anyway?" I demanded. "I mean, were you just going to stroll in and yank me out of class at gunpoint in front of everyone?"

"Certainly not," Marcus said, calmly.

What I was hoping was that somebody - anybody - had seen Marcus slug me and had taken down the license number of his expensive Euro-trash car. Any minute sirens might begin to wail behind us. The cops couldn't be afraid of a little rain - although to tell the truth, I don't remember CHiP's officers Ponch and Jon ever venturing out in a downpour....

Keep him talking, I told myself. If he's talking, he won't be able to concentrate on killing you.

"So what was the plan, then?"

"If you must know, I was going to go to the principal and inform him that Beaumont Industries was interested in sponsoring a student's tuition for the year, and that you were one of our finalists." Marcus picked some invisible lint off his trouser leg. "We would, of course, require a personal interview, after which we intended to take you - the candidate - to a celebratory lunch."

I rolled my eyes. The idea of me winning any kind of scholarship was laughable. This guy obviously hadn't seen my latest Geometry quiz scores.

"Father Dominic would never have let me go with you," I said. Especially, I thought, after I'd filled him in on what had gone on at chez Beaumont the night before.

"Oh, I think he might have. I was planning on making a sizable donation to his little mission."

I had to laugh at that one. This guy obviously didn't know Father D at all.

"I don't think so," I said. "And even if he did, don't you think he would mention how the last time he saw me, I was going off in a car with you? If the cops should happen to question him, you know, after I disappeared, that is."

Marcus said, "Oh, you're not going to disappear, Miss Simon."

This surprised me. "I'm not?" Then what was all this about?

"Oh, no," Marcus assured me, confidently. "There won't be the slightest question about what's happened to you. Your corpse is going to be found rather quickly, I imagine."

CHAPTER 18

This was so not what I wanted to hear, I can't even tell you.

"Look," I said, quickly. "I think you should know that I left a letter with a friend of mine. If anything happens to me, she's supposed to go to the cops and give it to them."

I smiled sunnily at him. Of course, it was all a big fat lie, but he didn't know that.

Or maybe he did.

"I don't think so," he said, politely.

I shrugged, pretending I didn't care. "Your funeral."

"You really," Marcus said, as I was busy straining my ears for sirens, "oughtn't to have tipped off the boy. That was your first mistake, you know."

Didn't I know it.

"Well," I said. "I thought he had a right to know what his own father was up to."

Marcus looked a little disappointed in me. "I didn't mean that," he said, and there was just a hint of contempt in his voice.

"What, then?" I opened my eyes as wide as they would go. Little Miss Innocent.

"I wasn't certain you knew about me, of course," Marcus went on, almost amiably. "Not until you tried to run back there, in front of the school. That, of course, was your second mistake. Your evident fear of me was a dead giveaway. Because then there was no question that you knew more than was good for you."

"Yeah, but look," I said, in my most reasonable voice. "What was it you said last night? Who's going to believe the word of a sixteen-year-old juvenile delinquent like myself over a big important businessman like you? I mean, please. You're friends with the governor, for crying out loud."

"And your mother," Marcus reminded me, "is a reporter with WCAL, as you pointed out."

Me and my big mouth.

The car, which had showed no signs of slowing down up until that point, started rounding a curve in the road. We were, I realized suddenly, on Seventeen Mile Drive.

I didn't even think about what I was doing. I just reached for the door handle, and the next thing I knew, a guardrail was looming at me, and rainwater and gravel were splashing up into my face.

But instead of rolling out of the car and up against that guardrail - below which I could see the roiling waves of the Restless Sea crashing against the boulders that rested at the bottom of the cliff we were on - I stayed where I was. That was because Marcus grabbed the back of my leather jacket and wouldn't let go.

"Not so fast," he said, trying to haul me back into the seat.

I wasn't giving up so easily, though. I twisted around - quite nimble in my Lycra skirt - and tried to slam my boot heel into his face. Unfortunately, Marcus's reflexes were as good as mine since he caught my foot and twisted it very painfully.

"Hey," I yelled. "That hurt!"

But Marcus just laughed and clocked me again.

Let me tell you, that didn't feel so swell. For a minute or so, I couldn't see too straight. It was during this moment that it took for my vision to adjust that Marcus closed the passenger door, which had continued to yawn open, stowed me back into my place, and buckled me safely in. When my eyeballs finally settled back into their sockets, I looked down, and saw that he was keeping a firm hold on me, primarily by clutching a handful of my sweater set.

"Hello," I said, feebly. "That's cashmere, you know."

Marcus said, "I will release you if you promise to be reasonable."

"I think it's perfectly reasonable," I said, "to try to escape from a guy like you."

Marcus didn't look very impressed by my sensible take on the matter.

"You can't possibly imagine that I'm going to let you go," he said. "I've got damage control to worry about. I mean, I can't have you going around telling people about my, er . . . unique problem-solving techniques."

"There's nothing very unique," I informed him, "about murder."

Marcus said, as if I hadn't spoken, "Historically, you understand, there have always been an ignorant few who have insisted upon standing in the way of progress. These are the people I was forced to … relocate."

"Yeah," I said. "To their graves."

Marcus shrugged. "Unfortunate, certainly, but nevertheless necessary. Still, in order for us to advance as a civilization, sacrifices must occasionally be made by a select few - "

"I doubt Mrs. Fiske agrees with who you selected to be sacrificed," I interrupted.

"What may appear to one party to be improvement may appear to another to be wanton destruction - "

"Like the annihilation of our natural coastline by money-grubbing parasites like yourself?"

Well, he'd already said he was going to kill me. I didn't figure it mattered whether or not I was polite to him.

"And so for progress - real progress," he went on, as if he hadn't even heard me, "to be made, some simply have to do without."

"Without their lives?" I glared at him. "Dude, let me tell you something. You know your brother, the wannabe-vampire? You are every bit as sick as he is."

The car, right at that moment, pulled into the driveway of Mr. Beaumont's house. The guard at the gate waved to as we went by, though he couldn't see me through the tinted windows. He probably had no idea that inside his boss's car was a teenage girl who was about to be executed. No one - no one - I realized, knew where I was: not my mother, not Father Dominic, not Jesse - not even my dad. I had no idea what Marcus had planned for me, but whatever it was, I suspected I wasn't going to like it very much … especially if it got me where it had gotten Mrs. Fiske.

Which I was beginning to think it probably would.

The car pulled to a halt. Marcus's fingers bit into my upper arm.

"Come on," he said, and he started dragging me across the seat toward his side of the car and the open passenger door.

"Wait a minute," I said, in a last ditch effort to convince him that I could be perfectly reasonable given the right incentive - for instance, being killed. "What if I promised not to tell anyone?"

"You already have told someone," Marcus reminded me. "My nephew, Tad, remember?"

"Tad won't tell anyone. He can't. He's related to you. He's not allowed to testify against his own relatives in court, or something." My head was still kind of wobbly from the smack Marcus had given me, so I wasn't at my most lucid. Nevertheless, I tried my best to reason with him. "Tad is a super secret keeper."

"The dead," Marcus reminded me, "usually are."

If I hadn't been scared before - and I most definitely had been - I was super scared now. What did he mean by that? Did he mean . . . did he mean Tad wouldn't talk because he'd be dead? This guy was going to kill his own nephew? Because of what I'd told him?

I couldn't let that happen. I had no idea what Marcus intended to do with me, but one thing I knew for sure:

He wasn't going to lay a finger on my boyfriend.

Although at that particular moment, I had no idea how I was going to prevent him from doing so.

As Marcus yanked on me, I said to his thugs, "I just want to thank you guys for helping me out. You know, considering I'm a defenseless young girl and this guy is a cold-blooded killer, and all. Really. You've been great - "

Marcus gave me a jerk and I came flying out of the car toward him.

"Whoa," I said, when I'd found my feet. "What's with the rough stuff?"

"I'm not taking any chances," Marcus said, keeping his iron grip on my arm as he dragged me toward the front door of the house. "You've proved a good deal more trouble than I ever anticipated."

Before I had time to digest this compliment, Marcus had hauled me into the house while behind us the thugs got out of the car and followed along . . . just in case, I suppose, I suddenly broke free and tried to pull a La Femme Nikita - type escape.

Inside the Beaumonts' house - from what I could see given the speed with which Marcus was dragging me around - things were much the same as they'd been the last time I'd visited. There was no sign of Mr. Beaumont - he was probably in bed recovering from my brutal attack on him the night before. Poor thing. If I'd known it was Marcus who was the blood-sucking parasite and not his brother, I'd have shown the old guy a little compassion.

Which reminded me.

"What about Tad?" I asked as Marcus steered me across the patio, where rain was pattering into the pool, making hundreds of little splashes and thousands of ripples. "Where've you got him locked up?"

"You'll see," Marcus assured me as he pulled me into the little corridor where the elevator to Mr. Beaumont's office sat.

He threw open the elevator door and pushed me inside the little moving room, then joined me there. His thugs took up positions in the hallway since there was no room for them and their over-muscled girth in the elevator. I was glad because Thug #1's wool peacoat had been starting to smell a little ripe.

Once again, I had a sensation of moving, but couldn't trace whether it was up or down. As we rode, I had a chance to study Marcus up close and personal. It was funny, but he really looked like an ordinary guy. He could have been anyone, a travel agent, a lawyer, a doctor.

But he wasn't. He was a murderer.

How proud his mom must be.

"You know," I remarked, "when my mom finds out about this, Beaumont Industries is going down. Way down."

"She's not going to connect your death with Beaumont Industries," Marcus informed me.

"Oh, yeah? Dude, let me tell you something. The minute my mutilated corpse is found, my mom's gonna turn into that creature from Aliens 2. You know the one where Sigourney Weaver gets into that forklift thing? And then - "

"You aren't going to be mutilated," Marcus snapped. He was obviously not a movie buff. He flung open the elevator door, and I saw that we were back where all of this had started, in Mr. Beaumont's spooky office.

"You're going," he said, with satisfaction, "to drown."

CHAPTER 19

"Here."

Marcus, by applying steady pressure to the small of my back, had steered me into the middle of the room. He went around the desk, reached into a drawer, and pulled out something red and silky. He threw it at me.

I, with my lightning quick reflexes, caught it, dropped it, then picked it up and squinted down at it. Except for the lights at the bottom of the aquarium, the room was in darkness.

"Put it on," Marcus said.

It was a bathing suit. A Speedo one-piece. I tossed it, as if it had burned my fingers, onto the top of Red Beaumont's desk.

"No thanks," I said. "Racerback straps don't really do it for me."

Marcus sighed. His gaze strayed toward the wall to my right. "Tad," he said, "wasn't nearly so difficult to persuade as you."

I spun around. Stretched out on a leather sofa I hadn't noticed before lay Tad. He was either asleep or unconscious. My vote was for unconscious, since most people don't nod off in their swimwear.

That's right: Tad was sans apparel, save for those swim trunks I'd been lucky enough to have seen him in once before.

I turned back toward his uncle Marcus.

"Nobody's going to believe it," I said. "I mean, it's raining outside. Nobody's going to believe we'd go swimming in weather like this."

"You aren't going swimming," Marcus said. He'd wandered over toward the aquarium. Now he tapped on the glass to get the attention of an angel fish. "You're taking out my brother's yacht, and then you're going jet-skiing."

"In the rain?"

Marcus looked at me pityingly. "You've never been jet-skiing before, have you?"

Actually, no. I prefer to keep my feet, whenever possible, on dry land. Preferably in Prada, but I'll settle for Nine West.

"The water is particularly choppy in weather like this," Marcus explained patiently. "Seasoned jet-skiers - like my nephew - can't get enough of the whitecaps. On the whole, it's the perfect kind of activity for a couple of thrill-seeking teenagers who have cut school to enjoy one another's company . . . and who will, of course, never make it back to shore. Well, not alive, anyway."

Marcus sighed, and went on, "You see, regrettably, Tad refuses to wear a life vest when he goes out on the water - much too restricting - and I'm afraid he's going to convince you to go without, as well. The two of you will stray too far from the boat, a particularly strong swell will knock you over, and . . . Well, the currents will probably toss your lifeless body to shore eventually - " He pulled up his sleeve and glanced at his watch again. "Most likely tomorrow morning. Now hurry and change. I have a lunch appointment with a gentleman who wants to sell me a piece of property that would be perfect for a Chuck E. Cheese."

"You can't kill your own nephew." My voice cracked. I was truly feeling . . . well, horrified. "I mean, I can't imagine something like that is going to make you too popular at Grandma's around the holidays."

Marcus's mouth set into a grim line. "Perhaps you didn't understand me. As I have just taken great pains to explain to you, Miss Simon, your death, as well as my nephew's, is going to look like a tragic accident."

"Is this how you got rid of Mrs. Fiske?" I demanded. "Jet-ski accident?"

"Hardly," he said, rolling his eyes. "I wasn't interested in having her body found. Without a body there's no proof a murder has taken place, correct? Now, be a good girl and - "

This guy was a complete mental case. I mean, Red Beaumont, for all his believing he's from Transylvania, isn't anywhere near as cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs as his little brother.

"Is this how you get your kicks?" I glared at him. "You really are a sicko. And for your information, I am not," I declared, "taking a stitch off. Whoever finds this body is going to find it fully clothed, thank you very much."

"Oh, I am sorry," he said. He actually sounded apologetic. "Of course you'd like a little privacy while you change. You'll have to forgive me. It's been a long time since I've been in the company of such a modest young lady." His gaze flickered disparagingly down toward my miniskirt.

More than ever, I wanted to plunge one of my thumbs into his eyes. But I was getting the impression that there was a chance he might actually leave me alone for a minute. And that was too tempting to resist. So I just stood there, trying to summon up a blush.

"I suppose," he said with a sigh, "that I can spare you five minutes." He strolled back toward the elevator. "Just remember, Miss Simon, that I will get you into that bathing suit one way or another. You see, of course, what poor Tad chose." He nodded toward the couch. "It would be simpler - and less painful for you in the long run - if you'd put it on yourself and spare me the trouble."

He pulled the elevator door shut behind him.

There really was something wrong with him, I decided. I mean, he'd just given up a chance to see a babe like me in the buff. The guy clearly had a nacho platter where his brains should have been.

Well, that's what I told myself, anyway.

Alone in Mr. Beaumont's office - except for Tad and the fish, neither of whom were particularly communicative at the moment - I immediately began trying to figure out a way to escape. The windows, I knew, were hopeless. But there was a phone on Mr. Beaumont's desk. I picked it up and began dialing.

"Miss Simon." Marcus's voice, coming through the receiver, sounded amused. "It's a house phone. You don't imagine we'd let Tad's father make any outgoing calls in his condition, do you? Please hurry up and change. We haven't much time."

He hung up. So did I.

Half a minute wasted.

The door to the elevator was locked. So was the door on the opposite side of the room. I tried kicking it, but it was made of some kind of really thick, solid wood, and didn't budge.

I decided to turn my attention to the windows. Wrapping the end of one of the velvet curtains around my fist, I punched out a few panes of glass, then tried slamming my foot against the wooden shutters.

No good. They appeared to have been nailed permanently shut.

Three minutes left.

I looked around for a weapon. My plan, I decided, since escape appeared to be impossible, was to climb the bookshelf behind the back of the elevator door. When Marcus came though that door, I'd leap down upon him, and point a sharp object at his throat. Then I'd use him as a hostage to make my way past the two thugs.

Okay, so it was a little Xena, Warrior Princess. Hey, it was a plan, all right? I never said it was a good one. It was just the best one I could come up with under the circumstances. I mean, it wasn't as if anybody was going to come bursting in to rescue me. I didn't see how anybody could - except for maybe Jesse, who was pretty slick at walking through walls and stuff.

Only Jesse didn't know I needed him. He didn't know I was in trouble. He didn't even know where I was.

And I had no way of letting him know, either.

A shard of glass, I decided, would make an excellent, very threatening weapon, and so I looked for a particularly lethal-looking one amid the rubble I'd made of a few of Mr. Beaumont's windows.

Two minutes.

Holding my shard of glass in my hand - wishing I had my ghost-busting gloves with me so I'd be sure not to cut myself - I scrambled up the bookshelf, no easy feat in three-inch heels.

One and half minutes.

I glanced over at Tad. He lay limp as a rag doll, his bare chest rising and falling in a gentle, rhythmic motion. It was quite a nice-looking chest, actually. Not as nice looking, maybe, as Jesse's. But still, in spite of his uncle being a murderer, and his dad being foreman at the cracker factory - not to mention the whole basketball thing - I wouldn't have minded resting my head against it. His chest, I mean. You know, under other circumstances, Tad actually being conscious being one of them.

But I'd never have the chance if I didn't get us out of this alive.

There was no sound in the room, save Tad's steady breathing and the burbling of the aquarium.

The aquarium.

I looked at the aquarium. It made up most of one whole wall of the office. How, I wondered, did those fish get fed? The tank was built into the wall. I could detect no convenient trapdoor through which someone might sprinkle food. The tank had to be accessed through the room next door.

The room I couldn't get to because the door to it was locked.

Unless.

Thirty seconds.

I dropped down from the bookshelf and began striding toward the aquarium.

I could hear the elevator begin to hum. Marcus, right on time, was on his way back. Needless to say, I had not put on my swimsuit like a good little girl. Although I did grab it - along with the wheeled swivel chair that had been behind Mr. Beaumont's desk - as I walked toward the fish tank.

The humming of the elevator stopped. I heard the doorknob turn. I kept walking. The chairs' wheels were noisy on the parquet floor.

The door to the elevator opened. Marcus, seeing that I had not done as he asked, shook his head.

"Miss Simon," he said, in a disappointed tone. "Are we being difficult?"

I positioned the swivel chair in front of the aquarium. Then I lifted a foot and balanced it on top of the seat. From one finger, I dangled the bathing suit.

"Sorry," I said, apologetically. "But dead's never been my color."

Then I grabbed that chair, and flung it with all my might at the glass of that giant fish tank.

CHAPTER 20

The next thing I knew there was a tremendous crash.

Then a wall of water, glass, and exotic marine life was coming at me.

It knocked me flat onto my back. A tidal wave hit me with the weight of a freight train, pushing me to the floor, then flattening me against the far wall of the room. The wind knocked out of me, I lay there a second, soaked, coughing up briny water, some of which I accidentally swallowed.

When I opened my eyes, all I could see were fish. Big fish, little fish, trying to swim through the three inches of water that lay upon the wood floor, opening and closing their mouths in a pathetic attempt to snatch a few more seconds of life. One fish in particular had washed up next to me, and it stared at me with eyes almost as glassy and lifeless as Marcus's had been when he'd been explaining how he intended to kill me.

Then a very familiar voice cut through my dazed musings on the paradoxes of life and death.

"Susannah?"

I lifted my head, and was extremely surprised to see Jesse standing over me, a very worried look on his face.

"Oh," I said. "Hi. How did you get here?"

"You called me," Jesse said.

How could I ever have thought, I wondered as I lay there gazing up at him, that any guy, even Tad, could ever be quite as hot as Jesse? Everything, from the tiny scar in his eyebrow, to the way his dark hair curled against the back of his neck, was perfect, as if Jesse were the original mold for the archetypal hottie.

He was polite, too. Old-world manners were the only ones he knew. He leaned down and offered me his hand . . . his lean, brown, completely poison-oak-free hand.

I reached up. He helped me to my feet.

"Are you all right?" he asked, probably because I wasn't mouthing off as much as usual.

"I'm fine," I said. Drenched, and smelling of fish, but fine. "But I didn't call you."

From the opposite corner of the room came a very low snarl.

Marcus was struggling to get to his feet, but he kept slipping on all the water and fish. "What the hell did you do that for?" he wanted to know.

I couldn't actually remember. I think maybe when the water hit me, I'd banged my head against something. Wow, I thought. Amnesia. Cool. I'd get out of tomorrow's Geometry quiz for sure.

Then my gaze fell on Tad - still sleeping peacefully on the couch, an exotic-looking fish flopping in death throes on his bare legs - and I remembered.

Oh, yeah. Tad's uncle Marcus was trying to kill us. Would kill us, too, if I didn't stop him.

I'm not sure I was really thinking straight. All I could remember from before the water hit was that it had been important, for some reason, for me to get onto the other side of that fish tank.

And so I waded through all that water - thinking to myself, My boots are so ruined - and climbed up onto what was now just a raised platform, like a stage, looking out across a sea of slapping fishtails. The accent lights, still buried in the colored gravel at the bottom of the tank, shined up on me.

"Susannah," I heard Jesse say. He'd followed me, and now stood looking up at me curiously. "What are you doing?"

I ignored him - and Marcus, too, who was still swearing as he tried to get across the room without getting his Cole-Haans more wet than they already were.

I stood inside the ruined aquarium and looked up. As I'd suspected, the fish were fed from a room behind the tank … a room in which there was nothing except aquarium maintenance equipment. The locked door from Mr. Beaumont's office led into this room. There was no other form of egress.

Not that it mattered now, of course.

"Get down from there." Marcus sounded really mad. "Get down there from there, by God, or I'll climb in and fish you out - "

Fish me out. That struck me as kind of amusing under the circumstances. I started to laugh.

"Susannah," Jesse said. "I think - "

"We'll see how hard you're laughing," Marcus bellowed, "when I get through with you, you stupid bitch."

I stopped laughing all of a sudden.

"Susannah," Jesse said. Now he really sounded worried.

"Don't worry, Jesse," I said, in a perfectly calm voice. "I've got this one under control."

"Jesse?" Marcus looked around. Not seeing anyone else in the room, however, but Tad, he said, "It's Marcus. I'm Marcus, remember? Now, come on down here. We don't have any more time for these childish games...."

I bent down and seized one of the accent lights that glowed, hidden in the sand at the bottom of the tank. Shaped like a small floodlight, it proved to be very hot in my hands when I touched it.

Marcus, realizing I wasn't going to come with him on my own accord, sighed, and reached into his suit coat, which was wet and smelly now. He'd have to change before his lunch meeting.

"Okay, you want to play games?" Marcus pulled something made of shiny metal from his breast pocket. It was, I realized, a tiny little gun. A twenty-two, from the looks of it. I knew from having watched so many episodes of Cops.

"See this?" Marcus pointed the muzzle at me. "I don't want to have to shoot you. The coroner tends to be suspicious of drowning victims bearing gunshot wounds. But we can always let the propellers dismember you so no one will actually be able to tell. Maybe just your head will toss up onto shore. Wouldn't your mother love that? Now, put the light down and let's go."

I straightened, but I didn't put the light down. It came up with me, along with the black, rubber-coated cord that had grounded it beneath the sand.

"That's right," Marcus said, looking pleased. "Put the light down, and let's go."

Jesse, standing in the water beside my would-be assassin, looked extremely interested in what was going on. "Susannah," he said. "That is a gun he is holding. Do you want me to - "

"Don't worry, Jesse," I said, approaching the edge of the tank, where there'd once been a wall of glass - before I'd broken it, that is. "Everything's under control."

"Who the hell is Jesse?" Marcus, I realized, was getting testy. "There is no Jesse here. Now put the light down and let's - "

I did what he said. Well, sort of. That is, I wrapped the cord that was attached to the light around my left hand. Then with my other hand, I pulled the bulb so that the cord came popping right out of the back of the socket.

Then I stood there holding the lamp in one hand, and the cord with frayed wires now sticking out of one end of it in the other.

"That's great," Marcus said. "You broke the light. You really showed me. Now" - his voice rose - "get down here!"

I stepped up to the edge of the tank.

"I am not," I informed Marcus, "stupid."

He gestured with the gun. "Whatever you say. Just - "

"Nor," I added, "am I a bitch."

Marcus's eyes widened. Suddenly, he realized what I was up to.

"No!" he shrieked.

But it was way too late. I had already thrown the cord into the murky water at Marcus's feet.

There was a brilliant blue flash and a lot of popping noises. Marcus screamed.

And then we were plunged into impenetrable darkness.

CHAPTER 21

Well, okay, not really impenetrable. I could still see Jesse, glowing the way he did.

"That," he said, looking down at the moaning Marcus, "was very impressive, Susannah."

"Thanks," I said, pleased to have won his approval. It happened so rarely. I was glad I'd listened to Doc during one of his recent electrical safety lectures.

"Now, do you think you want to tell me," Jesse asked, moving to offer me a steadying hand as I climbed down from the aquarium, "just what is going on here? Is that your friend Tad on the couch there?"

"Uh-huh." Before stepping down, I bent down, searching for the cord along the floor. "Step over here, will you, so I can - " Jesse's glow, subtle as it was, soon revealed what I was looking for. "Never mind." I pulled the cord back up into the aquarium. "Just in case," I said, straightening and climbing out of the aquarium, "they get the circuit breaker fixed before I'm out of here."

"Who is they? Susannah, what is going on here?"

"It's a long story," I said. "And I'm not sticking around to tell it. I want to be out of here when he" - I nodded toward Marcus, who was moaning more loudly now - "wakes up. He's got a couple of thick-necked compadres waiting for me, too, in case - " I broke off.

Jesse looked at me questioningly. "What is it?"

"Do you smell that?"

Stupid question. I mean, after all, the guy's dead. Can ghosts smell?

Apparently so, since he went, "Smoke."

A single syllable, but it sent a chill down my spine. Either that, or a fish had found it's way inside my sweater.

I glanced at the aquarium. Beyond it, I could see a rosy glow emanating from the room next door. Just as I had suspected, by giving Marcus a giant electric shock, I had managed to spark a fire in the circuit panel. It appeared to have spread to the walls around it. I could see the first tiny licks of orange leaping out from behind the wood paneling.

"Great," I said. The elevator was useless without electricity. And as I knew only too well, there was no other way out of that room.

Jesse wasn't quite the defeatist I was, however.

"The windows," he said, and hurried toward them.

"It's no good." I leaned against Mr. Beaumont's desk and picked up the house phone. Dead, just as I'd expected. "They're nailed shut."

Jesse glanced at me over his shoulder. He looked amused. "So?" he said.

"So." I slammed the receiver down. "Nailed, Jesse. As in impossible to budge."

"For you, maybe." Even as he said it, the wooden shutters over the window closest to me began to tremble ominously as if blown by some unseen gale. "But not for me."

I watched, impressed. "Golly gee, mister," I said. "I forgot all about your superpowers."

Jesse's look went from amused to confused. "My what?"

"Oh." I dropped the imitation I'd been doing of a kid from an episode of Superman.

"Never mind."

I heard, above the sound of nails screaming as if caught in the suck zone of an F5 tornado, people shouting. I glanced toward the elevator. The thugs, apparently concerned for their employer's welfare, were calling his name up the shaft.

I guess I didn't blame them. Smoke was steadily filling the room. I could hear small eruptions now as chemicals - most likely of the hazardous nature - used in the upkeep of Mr. Beaumont's fish tank burst into flames next door. If we didn't get out of there soon, I had a feeling we'd all be inhaling some pretty toxic fumes.

Fortunately, at that moment the shutters burst off first one and then another of the windows, with all the force as if a hurricane had suddenly ripped them off. Blam! And then blam again. I'd never seen anything like it before, not even on the Discovery Channel.

Gray light rushed in. It was, I realized, still raining out.

I didn't care. I don't think I'd ever been so glad to see the sky, even as darkly overcast as it was. I rushed to the window closest to me and looked out, squinting against the rain.

We were, I saw, in the upper story of the house. Below us lay the patio....

And the pool.

The shouting up the elevator shaft was growing louder. The thicker the smoke grew, apparently, the more frantic the thugs became. God forbid one of them should think to dial 911. Then again, considering the career choices they'd made, that number probably didn't hold much appeal for them.

I measured the distance between myself and the deep end of the pool.

"It can't be more than twenty feet." Jesse, observing my calculations, nodded to Marcus. "You go. I'll look after him." His dark-eyed gaze flicked toward the elevator shaft. "And them, if they make any progress."

I didn't ask what he meant by "looking after." I didn't have to. The dangerous light in his eyes said it all.

I glanced at Tad. Jesse followed my gaze, then rolled his eyes, the dangerous light extinguished. He muttered some stuff in Spanish.

"Well, I can't just leave him here," I said.

"No."

Which was how, a few seconds later, Tad, supported by me, but transported via the Jesse-kinetic connection, ended up perched on the sill of one of those windows Jesse had blown open for me.

The only way to get Tad into the pool - and to safety - was to drop him into it out the window. This was a risky enough endeavor without having an inferno blazing next door, and hired assassins bearing down on one. I had to concentrate. I didn't want to do it wrong. What if I missed and he smacked onto the patio, instead? Tad could break his poison-oaky neck.

But I didn't have much choice in the matter. It was either turn him into a possible pancake, or let him be barbecued for true. I went with the possible pancake, thinking that he was likelier to heal in time for the prom from a cracked skull than third-degree burns, and, after aiming as best I could, I let go. He fell backward, like a scuba diver off the side of a boat, tumbling once through the sky and doing what Dopey would call a pretty sick inverted spin (Dopey is an avid, if untalented, snowboarder).

Fortunately, Tad's sick inverted spin ended with him floating on his back in the deep end of his father's pool.

Of course, to guarantee he didn't drown - unconscious people aren't the best swimmers — I jumped in after him . . . but not before one last look around.

Marcus was finally starting to regain consciousness. He was coughing a little because of the smoke, and splashing around in the fishy water. Jesse stood over him, looking grim faced.

"Go, Susannah," he said when he noticed I'd hesitated.

I nodded. But there was still one thing I had to know.

"You're not …" I didn't want to, but I had to ask it. "You're not going to kill him, are you?"

Jesse looked as incredulous as if I'd asked him if he were going to serve Marcus a slice of cheesecake. He said, "Of course not. Go."

I went.

The water was warm. It was like jumping into a giant bathtub. When I'd swum up to the surface - not exactly easy in boots, by the way - I hurried to Tad's side....

Only to find that the water had revived him. He was splashing around, looking confused and taking in great lungfuls of water. I smacked him on the back a couple of times, and steered him to the side of the pool, which he clung to gratefully.

"S-Sue," he sputtered, bewilderedly. "What are you doing here?" Then he noticed my leather jacket. "And why aren't you wearing a bathing suit?"

"It's a long story," I said.

He looked even more confused after that, but that was all right. I figured with as much stuff as he was going to have to deal with - his dad being a Prozac candidate, his uncle a serial killer - he didn't need to have all the gory details spelled out for him right away. Instead, I guided him over toward the shallow end. We'd only been standing there a minute before Mr. Beaumont opened the sliding glass door and stepped outside.

"Children," he said. He was wearing a silk dressing gown and his bedroom slippers. He looked very excited. "What are you doing in that pool? There's a fire! Get out of the house at once."

Even as he said it, I could hear, off in the distance, the whine of a siren. The fire department was on its way. Someone, anyway, had dialed 911.

"I warned Marcus," Mr. Beaumont said, as he held out a big fluffy towel for Tad to step into, "about the wiring in my office. I had a feeling it was faulty. My telephone absolutely would not make outgoing calls."

Still standing in the waist-high water, I followed Mr. Beaumont's gaze, and found myself looking up at the window I'd just leaped from. Smoke was billowing out of it. The fire seemed to be contained in that section of the house, but still, it looked pretty bad. I wondered if Marcus and his thugs had gotten out in time.

And then someone stepped up to the window and looked down at me.

It wasn't Marcus. And it wasn't Jesse, either, though this person was giving off a tell-tale glow.

It was someone who waved cheerfully down at me.

Mrs. Deirdre Fiske.

CHAPTER 22

I never saw Marcus Beaumont again.

Oh, stop worrying: he didn't croak. Of course, the firemen looked for him. I told them I thought there was at least one person trapped in that burning room, and they did their best to get in there in time to save him.

But they didn't find anyone. And no human remains were discovered by the investigators who went in after the fire was finally put out. They found an awful lot of burned fish, but no Marcus Beaumont.

Marcus Beaumont was officially missing.

Much in the same way, I realized, that his victims had gone missing. He simply vanished, as if into thin air.

A lot of people were puzzled by the disappearance of this prominent businessman. In later weeks, there would be articles about it in the local papers, and even a mention on one cable news network. Interestingly, the person who knew the most about Marcus Beaumont's last moments before he vanished was never interviewed, much less questioned, about what might have led up to his bizarre disappearance.

Which is probably just as well, considering the fact that she had way more important things to worry about. For instance, being grounded.

That's right. Grounded.

If you think about it, the only thing I'd really done wrong on the day in question was dress a little less conservatively than I should have. Seriously. If I'd gone Banana Republic instead of Betsey Johnson, none of this might have happened. Because then I wouldn't have been sent home to change, and Marcus would never have gotten his mitts on me.

On the other hand, then he'd still probably be going around, slipping environmentalists into cement booties and tossing them off the side of his brother's yacht … or however it was he got rid of all those people without ever being caught. I never really did get the full story on that one.

In any case, I got grounded, completely unjustly, although I wasn't exactly in a position to defend myself . . . not without telling the truth, and I couldn't, of course, do that.

I guess you could imagine how it must have looked to my mother and stepfather when the cop car pulled up in front of our house and Officer Green opened the back door to reveal . . . well, me.

I looked like something out of a movie about post-apocalyptic America. Tank Girl, but without the awful haircut. Sister Ernestine wasn't going to have to worry about me showing up to school in Betsey Johnson ever again, either. The skirt was completely ruined, as was my cashmere sweater set. My fabulous leather motorcycle jacket might be all right, someday, if I can ever figure out a way to get the fishy smell out of it. The boots, however, are a lost cause.

Boy, was my mom mad. And not because of my clothes, either.

Interestingly, Andy was even madder. Interestingly because, of course, he's not even my real parent.

But you should have seen the way he lit into me right there in the living room. Because of course I'd had to explain to them what it was I'd been doing at the Beaumonts' place when the fire broke out, instead of being where I was supposed to have been: school.

And the only lie I could think of that seemed the least bit believable was my newspaper article story.

So I told them that I'd skipped school in order to do some follow-up work on my interview with Mr. Beaumont.

They didn't believe me, of course. It turned out they knew I'd been sent home from school to change clothes. Father Dominic, alarmed when I didn't return in a timely fashion, had immediately called my mother and stepfather at their respective places of work to alert them to the fact that I was missing.

"Well," I explained. "I was on my way home to change when Mr. Beaumont's brother drove by and offered me a ride, and so I took it, and then when I was sitting in Mr. B's office, I started to smell smoke, and so I jumped out the window...."

Okay, even I have to admit that the whole thing sounded super suspicious. But it was better than the truth, right? I mean, were they really going to believe that Tad's uncle Marcus had been trying to kill me because I knew too much about a bunch of murders he'd committed for the sake of urban sprawl?

Not very likely. Even Tad didn't try that one on the cops who showed up along with the fire department, and demanded an explanation as to why he was hanging around the house in a swim-suit on a schoolday. I guess he didn't want to get his uncle in trouble since it would look bad for his dad, and all. He started lying like crazy about how he had a cold, and the doctor had recommended he try to clear his sinuses by sitting for long bouts in his hot tub (good one: I was definitely going to have remember it for future reference - Andy was talking about building a hot tub onto our deck out back).

Tad's father, God bless him, denied both our stories completely, insisting he'd been in his room waiting for his lunch to be delivered when one of the servants had informed him that his office was in flames. No one had said anything about Tad having stayed home with a cold, or a girl waiting for an interview with him.

Fortunately, however, he also claimed that while waiting for his lunch to be delivered, he'd been taking a nap in his coffin.

That's right: his coffin.

This caused a number of raised eyebrows, and eventually, it was decided that Mr. Beaumont ought to be admitted to the local hospital's psychiatric floor for a few days' observation. This, as you might understand, necessarily cut off any conversation Tad and I might have had at the time, and while he went off with EMS and his father, I was unceremoniously led to a squad car and, eventually, when the cops remembered me, driven home.

Where, instead of being welcomed into the bosom of my family, I received the bawling out of a lifetime.

I'm not even kidding. Andy was enraged. He said I should have gone straight home, changed clothes, and gone straight back to school. I had no business accepting rides from anyone, particularly wealthy businessmen I hardly knew.

Furthermore, I had skipped school, and no matter how many times I pointed out that a) I'd actually been kicked out of school, and b) I'd been doing an assignment for school (at least according to the story I told him), I had, essentially, betrayed everyone's trust. I was grounded for one week.

I tell you, it was almost enough to make me consider telling the truth.

Almost. But not quite.

I was getting ready to slink upstairs to my room - in order to "think about what I'd done" - when Dopey strolled in and casually announced that, by the way, on top of all my other sins, I had also punched him very hard in the stomach that morning for no apparent reason.

This, of course, was an outright lie, and I was quick to remind him of this: I had been provoked, unnecessarily so. But Andy, who does not condone violence for any reason, promptly grounded me for another week. Since he also grounded Dopey for whatever it was he had said that had led to my punching him, I didn't mind too much, but still, it seemed a bit extreme. So extreme, in fact, that after Andy had left the room, I sort of had to sit down, exhausted in the wake of his rage, which I had never before seen unleashed - well, not in my direction, anyway.

"You really," my mother said, taking a seat opposite me, and looking a bit worriedly down at the slipcover on which I was slumped, "should have let us know where you were. Poor Father Dominic was frightened out of his mind for you."

"Sorry," I said woefully, fingering the remnants of my skirt. "I'll remember next time."

"Still," my mother said. "Officer Green told us that you were very helpful during the fire. So I guess …"

I looked at her. "You guess what?"

"Well," my mother said. "Andy doesn't want me to tell you now, but …"

She actually got up - my mother, who had once interviewed Yasir Arafat - and slunk out of the room, ostensibly to check whether or not Andy was within earshot.

I rolled my eyes. Love. It could make a pretty big sap out of you.

As I rolled my eyes, I noticed that my mother, who always gets a lot of nervous energy in a crisis, had spent the time that I'd been missing hanging up more pictures in the living room. There were some new ones, ones I hadn't seen before. I got up to inspect them more closely.

There was one of her and my dad on their wedding day. They were coming down the steps of the courthouse where they'd been married, and their friends were throwing rice at them. They looked impossibly young and happy. I was surprised to see a picture of my mom and dad right alongside the pictures of my mom's wedding to Andy.

But then I noticed that beside the photo of my mom and dad was a picture from what had to have been Andy's wedding to his first wife. This was more of a studio portrait than a candid shot. Andy was standing, looking stiff and a little embarrassed, next to a very skinny, hippyish-looking girl with long, straight hair.

"Of course she does," a voice at my shoulder said.

"Jeez, Dad," I hissed, whirling around. "When are you going to stop doing that?"

"You are in a heap of trouble, young lady," my father said. He looked sore. Well, as sore as a guy in jogging pants could look. "Just what were you thinking?"

I whispered, "I was thinking of making it safe for people to protest the corporate destruction of northern California's natural resources without having to worry about being sealed up in an oil drum and buried ten feet under."

"Don't get smart with me, Susannah. You know what I'm talking about. You could have been killed."

"You sound like him." I rolled my eyes toward Andy's picture.

"He did the right thing, grounding you," my father said, severely. "He's trying to teach you a lesson. You behaved in a thoughtless and reckless manner. And you shouldn't have hit that kid of his."

"Dopey? Are you joking?"

But I could tell he was serious. I could also tell that this was one argument I wasn't going to win.

So instead, I looked at the picture of Andy and his first wife, and said, sullenly, "You could have told me about her, you know. It would have made my life a whole lot simpler."

"I didn't know, either," my dad said, with a shrug. "Not until I saw your mom hang up the photo this afternoon."

"What do you mean, you didn't know?" I glared at him. "What was with all the cryptic warnings, then?"

"Well, I knew Beaumont wasn't the Red you were looking for. I told you that."

"Oh, big help," I said.

"Look." My dad seemed annoyed. "I'm not all-knowing. Just dead."

I heard my mother's footsteps on the wood floor. "Mom's coming," I said. "Scat."

And Dad, for once, did as I asked, so that when my mother returned to the living room, I was standing in front of the wall of photos, looking very demure - well, for a girl who'd practically been burned alive, anyway.

"Listen," my mother whispered.

I looked away from the picture. My mother was holding an envelope. It was a bright pink envelope, covered with little hand-drawn hearts and rainbows. The kind of hearts and rainbows Gina always put on her letters to me from back home.

"Andy wanted me to wait to tell you about this," my mom said in a low voice, "until after your grounding was up. But I can't. I want you to know I've spoken with Gina's mom, and she's agreed to let us fly Gina out here for a visit during her school's Spring Break next month - "

My mother broke off as I flung both my arms around her neck.

"Thank you!" I cried.

"Oh, honey," my mom said, hugging me - although a little tentatively, I noticed, since I still smelled like a fish. "You're welcome. I know how much you miss her. And I know how tough it's been on you, adjusting to a whole new high school, and a whole new set of friends - and to having stepbrothers. We're so proud of how well you're doing." She pulled away from me. I could tell she'd wanted to go on hugging me, but I was just too gross even for my own mother. "Well, up until now, anyway."

I looked down at Gina's letter, which my mom had handed to me. Gina was a terrific letter writer. I couldn't wait to go upstairs and read it. Only … only something was still bothering me.

I looked back, over my shoulder, at the photo of Andy and his first wife.

"You hung up some new pictures, I see," I said.

My mom followed my gaze. "Oh, yes. Well, it kept my mind occupied while we were waiting to hear from you. Why don't you go upstairs and get yourself cleaned up? Andy's making individual pizzas for dinner."

"His first wife," I said, my eyes still glued to the photo. "Dopey's - I mean, Brad's - mom. She died, right?"

"Uh-huh," my mother said. "Several years ago."

"What of?"

"Ovarian cancer. Honey, be careful where you put those clothes when you take them off. They're covered with soot. Look, there's black gunk now all over my new Pottery Barn slipcovers."

I stared at the photo.

"Did she …" I struggled to formulate the correct question. "Did she go into a coma, or something?"

My mother looked up from the slipcover she'd been yanking from the armchair where I'd been lounging.

"I think so," she said. "Yes, toward the end. Why?"

"Did Andy have to …" I turned Gina's letter over and over in my hands. "Did they have to pull the plug?"

"Yes." My mother had forgotten about the slipcover. Now she was staring at me, obviously concerned. "Yes, as a matter of fact, they had to ask that she be taken off life support at a certain point since Andy believed she wouldn't have wanted to live like that. Why?"

"I don't know." I looked down at the hearts and rainbows on Gina's envelope. Red. I had been so stupid. You know me, Doc's mother had insisted. God, I should so have my mediator license revoked. If there were a license, which, of course, there isn't.

"What was her name?" I asked, nodding my head toward the photo. "Brad's mom, I mean?"

"Cynthia," my mother said.

Cynthia. God, what a loser I am.

"Honey, come help me, would you?" My mother was still futzing with the chair I'd been sitting in. "I can't get this one cushion loose - "

I tucked Gina's envelope into my pocket and went to help my mother. "Where's Doc?" I asked. "I mean, David."

My mother looked at me curiously. "Upstairs in his room, I think, doing his homework. Why?"

"Oh, I just have to tell him something."

Something I should have told him a long time ago.

CHAPTER 23

"So?" Jesse asked. "How did he take it?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

I was stretched out on my bed, totally without makeup, attired in my oldest jogging clothes. I had a new plan: I had decided I was going to treat Jesse exactly the way I would my stepbrothers. That way, I'd be guaranteed not to fall in love with him.

I was flipping through a copy of Vogue instead of doing my Geometry homework like I was supposed to. Jesse was on the window seat - of course - petting Spike.

Jesse shook his head. "Come on," he said. It always sounded strange to me when Jesse said things like Come on. It seemed so strange coming out of a guy who was wearing a shirt with laces instead of buttons. "Tell me what he said."

I flipped a page of my magazine. "Tell me what you guys did to Marcus."

Jesse looked a little too surprised by the question. "We did nothing to him."

"Baloney. Where'd he go, then?"

Jesse shrugged and scratched Spike beneath the chin. The stupid cat was purring so loud, I could hear it all the way across the room.

"I think he decided to travel for a while." Jesse's tone was deceptively innocent.

"Without any money? Without his credit cards?" One of the things the firemen had found in the room was Marcus's wallet … and his gun.

"There is something to be said" - Jesse gave Spike a playful swat on the back of the head when the cat took a lazy swipe at him - "for seeing this great country of ours on foot. Maybe he will come to have a better appreciation for its natural beauty."

I snorted, and turned a page of my magazine. "He'll be back in a week."

"I think not." He said it with such certainty that I instantly became suspicious.

"Why not?"

Jesse hesitated. He didn't want to tell me, I could tell.

"What?" I said. "Telling me, a mere living being, is going to violate some spectral code?"

"No," Jesse said with a smile. "He's not coming back, Susannah, because the souls of the people he killed won't let him."

I raised my eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"In my day, it was called bedevilment. I don't know what they call it now. But your intervention had a rallying effect on Mrs. Fiske and the three others whose lives Marcus Beaumont took. They have banded together, and will not rest until he has been sufficiently punished for his crimes. He can run from one end of the earth to the other, but he will never escape them. Not until he dies himself. And when that happens" - Jesse's voice was hard - "he will be a broken man."

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. As a mediator, I knew I shouldn't approve of this sort of behavior. I mean, ghosts should not be allowed to take the law into their own hands any more than the living should.

But I had no particular fondness for Marcus, and no way of proving that he'd killed those people anyway. He'd never be punished, I knew, by inhabitants of this world. So was it so wrong that he be punished by those who lived in the next?

I glanced at Jesse out of the corner of my eyes, remembering that, from what I'd read, no one had ever been convicted of his murder, either.

"So," I said. "I guess you did the same thing, huh, to the, um, people who killed you, right?"

Jesse didn't fall for this sly question, though. He only smiled, and said, "Tell me what happened with your brother."

"Stepbrother," I reminded him.

And I wasn't going to tell Jesse about my interview with Doc, anymore than Jesse was going to tell me diddly about how he'd died. Only in my case, it was because what had happened with Doc was just too excruciatingly embarrassing to go into. Jesse didn't want to talk about how he'd died because . . . well, I don't know. But I doubt it's because he's embarrassed about it.

I had found Doc exactly where my mother had told me he'd be, in his room doing his homework, a paper that wasn't due until the following month. But that was Doc for you: why put off until tomorrow homework you could be doing today?

His "Come in," when I'd tapped at the door had been casual. He hadn't suspected it would be me. I never ventured into my stepbrothers' rooms if I could avoid it. The odor of dirty socks was simply too overwhelming.

Only since I wasn't smelling too daisy-fresh myself at that particular moment, I thought I could bear it.

He was shocked to see me, his face turning almost as red as his hair. He jumped up and tried to hide his pile of dirty underwear beneath the comforter of his unmade bed. I told him to relax. And then I sat down on that unmade bed, and said I had something to tell him.

How did he take it? Well, for one thing, he didn't ask me a lot of stupid questions like How do you know? He knew how I knew. He knew a little about the mediation thing. Not a lot, but enough to know that I communicate, on a somewhat regular basis, with the undead.

I guess it was the fact that it was his own mother I'd been communicating with this time that brought tears to his blue eyes . . . which freaked me out a bit. I had never seen Doc cry before.

"Hey," I said, alarmed. "Hey, it's okay - "

"What - " Doc was choking back a sob. I could totally tell. "What did she l-look like?"

"What did she look like?" I echoed, not sure I'd heard him right. At his vigorous nod, however, I said, carefully, "Well, she looked . . . she looked very pretty."

Doc's tear-filled eyes widened. "She did?"

"Uh-huh," I said. "That's how I recognized her, you know. From the wedding photo of her and your dad, downstairs. She looked like that. Only her hair was shorter."

Doc said, the effort he was making not to cry causing his voice to shake, "I wish I could … I wish I could see her looking like that. The last time I saw her, she looked terrible. Not like in that picture. You wouldn't have recognized her. She was in a c-coma. Her eyes were sunken in. And there were all these tubes coming out of her - "

Even though I was sitting like a foot away from him, I felt the shudder that ran through him. I said, gently, "David, what you did, when you guys made the decision to let her go … it was the right thing. It was what she wanted. That's what she needs to make sure you understand. You know it was the right thing, don't you?"

His eyes were so deeply pooled in tears, I could hardly see his irises anymore. As I watched, one drop escaped, and trickled down his cheek, followed quickly by another on the opposite side of his face.

"I-intellectually," he said. "I guess. B-but - "

"It was the right thing," I repeated, firmly. "You've got to believe that. She does. So stop beating yourself up. She loves you very much - "

That did it. Now the tears were coming down in full force.

"She said that?" he asked, in a broken voice that reminded me that he was, after all, still a pretty young kid, and not the superhuman computer he sometimes acts like.

"Of course she did."

She hadn't, of course, but I'm sure she would have if she hadn't been so disgusted by my gross incompetency.

Then Doc did something that completely shocked me: he flung both his arms around my neck.

This kind of impassioned display was so unlike Doc, I didn't know what to do. I sat there for one awkward moment, not moving, afraid that if I did, I might gouge his face with some of the rivets on my jacket. Finally, however, when he didn't let go, I reached up and patted him uncertainly on the shoulder.

"It's okay," I said, lamely. "Everything is going to be okay."

He cried for about two minutes. His clinging to me, crying like that, gave me a strange feeling. It was kind of a protective feeling.

Then he finally leaned back, and, embarrassed, wiped his eyes again and said, "Sorry."

I said, "It's no big deal," even though, of course, it was.

"Suze," he said. "Can I ask you something?"

Expecting more questions about his mother, I said, "Sure."

"Why do you smell like fish?"

I went back to my room a little while later, shaken not just by Doc's emotional reaction to the message I'd delivered but also by something else, as well. Something I had not told Doc, and which I had no intention of mentioning to Jesse, either.

And that was that while I'd been hugging Doc, his mother had materialized on the opposite side of the bed, and looked down at me.

"Thank you," she said. She was, I saw, crying about as hard as her kid. Only her tears, I was uncomfortably aware, were of gratitude and love.

With all these people crying around me, was it really any wonder that my eyes filled up, too? I mean, come on. I'm only human.

But I really hate it when I cry. I'd much rather bleed or throw up or something. Crying is just …

Well, it's the worst.

You can see why I couldn't tell any of this stuff to Jesse. It was just too . . . personal. It was between Doc and his mom and me, and wild horses - or excessively cute ghosts who happened to live in my bedroom - weren't going to get it out of me.

Jesse, I saw when I glanced up from the article I'd been staring at unseeingly - How to Tell If He Secretly Loves You. Yeah, right. A problem I so don't have - was grinning at me.

"Still," he said. "You must be feeling good. It's not every mediator who single-handedly stops a murderer."

I grunted, and flipped over another page. "It's an honor I could definitely have lived without," I said. "And I didn't do it single-handedly. You helped." Then I remembered that, really, I'd had the situation well in hand by the time Jesse had shown up. So I added, "Well, sort of."

But that sounded ungracious. So I said, grudgingly, "Thanks for showing up the way you did."

"How could I not? You called me." He had found a piece of string somewhere, and now he dragged it in front of Spike, who eyed it with an expression on his face that seemed to say, "Whadduya think, I'm stupid?"

"Um," I said. "I did not call you, all right? I don't know where you're getting this."

He looked at me, his eyes darker than ever in the rays of the setting sun, which poured unmercifully into my room every night at sundown. "I distinctly heard you, Susannah."

I frowned. This was all getting a little too weird for me. First Mrs. Fiske had shown up when all I'd been doing was thinking about her. And then Jesse did the same thing. Only I hadn't, to my knowledge, called either of them. I'd been thinking about them, true.

Jeez. There was way more stuff to this mediating thing than I'd ever even suspected.

"Well, while we're on the subject," I said, "how come you didn't just tell me that Red was Doc's mom's nickname for him?"

Jesse threw me a perplexed look. "How would I have known?"

True. I hadn't thought of that. Andy and my mother had bought the house - Jesse's house - only last summer. Jesse couldn't have known who Cynthia was. And yet …

Well, he'd known something about her.

Ghosts. Would I ever figure them out?

"What did the priest say?" Jesse asked me, in an obvious attempt to change the subject. "When you told him about the Beaumonts, I mean?"

"Not a whole lot. He's pretty peeved at me for not having filled him in right away about Marcus and stuff." I was careful not to add that Father D was also still ballistic over the whole Jesse issue. That, he'd promised me, was a topic we were going to discuss at length tomorrow morning at school. I could hardly wait. It was no wonder I wasn't doing so hot in Geometry if you took into account all the time I was spending in the principal's office.

The phone rang. I snatched up the receiver, grateful for an excuse not to have to go on lying to Jesse.

"Hello?"

Jesse gave me a sour look. The telephone is one modern convenience Jesse insists he could live very happily without. TV is another. He doesn't seem to mind Madonna, though.

"Sue?"

I blinked. It was Tad.

"Oh, hi," I said.

"Um," Tad said. "It's me. Tad."

Don't ask me how this guy, and the guy who'd gotten away with so many murders, could be from the same gene pool. I really don't get it.

I rolled my eyes, and, throwing the copy of Vogue onto the floor, picked up Gina's letter and re-read it.

"I know it's you, Tad," I said. "How's your dad?"

"Um," Tad said. "Much better, actually. It looks as if someone was giving him something - something my dad seems to have thought was medicine - that may actually have been having some kind of hallucinatory effect on him. Turns out the doctors think that might be what's making him think he's … well, what he thinks he is."

"Really?"

Dude, Gina wrote, in her big, loopy cursive. Looks like I'm headin’ out West to see you! Your mom rocks! So does that new stepdad of yours. Can't wait to meet the new bros. They can't possibly be as bad as you say.

Wanna bet?

"Yeah. So they're going to try to, you know, detox him for a while, and the hope is that once this stuff, whatever it is, is out of his system, he'll be back to his old self again."

"Wow, Tad," I said. "That's great."

"Yeah. It's going to take a while, though, since I guess he's been taking this stuff since right after my mom died. I think . . . well, I didn't tell anyone, but I'm wondering if my uncle Marcus might have been giving this stuff to my dad. Not to hurt him or anything - "

Yeah, right. He hadn't been trying to hurt him. He'd been trying to gain control of Beaumont Industries, that's all.

And he'd succeeded.

"I think he really must have thought he was helping my dad. Right after my mom died, Dad was way messed up. Uncle Marcus was only trying to help him, I'm sure."

Just like he was just trying to help you, Tad, when he pistol-whipped you and swapped your Levis for swim trunks. Tad, I realized, had some major denial going on.

"Anyway," Tad went on. "I just want to say, um, thanks. I mean, for not saying anything to the cops about my uncle. I mean, we probably should have, right? But it seems like he's gone now, and it would have, you know, looked kind of bad for my dad's business - "

This conversation was getting way too weird for me. I returned to the comfort of Gina's letter.

So what should I bring? I mean, to wear. I got this totally hot pair of Miu Miu slacks, marked down to twenty bucks at Filene's, but isn't it Baywatch weather there? The slacks are a wool blend. Also, you better get us invited to some rockin' parties while I'm there because I just got new braids, and girlfriend, let me tell you, I look GOOD. Shauna did them, and she only charged me a buck per. Of course I have to babysit her stinking brother this Saturday, but who cares? It's so worth it.

"Well, anyway, I just called to say thanks for being, you know, so cool about everything."

Also, Gina wrote, I think you should know, I am very seriously thinking about getting a tattoo while I'm out there. I know, I know. Mom wasn't exactly thrilled by the tongue stud. But I'm thinking there's no reason she has to see the tattoo, if I get it where I'm thinking about getting it. If you know what I mean! XXXOOO - G

"Also, I guess I should tell you, since my uncle's gone, and my dad's . . . you know, in the hospital … it looks like I have to go stay with my aunt for a while up in San Francisco. So I won't be around for a few weeks. Or at least until my dad gets better."

I was never, I realized, going to see Tad again. To him, I would eventually become just an awkward reminder of what had happened. And why would he want to hang around someone who reminds him of the painful time when his dad was running around pretending to be Count Dracula?

I found this a little sad, but I could understand it.

P.S. Check this out! I found it in a thrift shop. Remember that whacked-out psychic we went to see that one time? The one who called you - what was it again? Oh, yeah, a mediator. Conductor of souls? Well, here you are! Nice robes. I mean it. Very Cynthia Rowley.

Tucked into the envelope with Gina's letter was a battered tarot card. It appeared to have been from a beginner's set since there was an explanation printed under the illustration, which was of an old man with a long white beard holding a lantern.

The Ninth Key, the explanation went. Ninth card in the Tarot, the Hermit guides the souls of the dead past the temptation of illusory fires by the roadside, so that they may go straight to their higher goal.

Gina had drawn a balloon coming from the hermit's mouth, in which she'd penned the words, Hi, I'm Suze, I'll be your spiritual guide to the afterlife. All right, which one of you lousy spooks took my lip gloss?

"Sue?" Tad sounded concerned. "Sue, are you still there?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'm here. That's really too bad, Tad. I'll miss you."

"Yeah," Tad said. "Me, too. I'm really sorry you never got to see me play."

"Yeah," I said. "That's a real shame."

Tad murmured a last good-bye in his sexy, silky voice, then hung up. I did the same, careful not to look in Jesse's direction.

"So," Jesse said without so much as an excuse-me-for-eavesdropping-on-your-private-conversation. "You and Tad? You are no more?"

I glared at him.

"Not," I said, stiffly, "that it's any of your business. But yes, it appears that Tad is moving to San Francisco."

Jesse didn't even have the decency to try to hide his grin.

Instead of letting him get to me, I picked up the tarot card Gina had sent me. It's funny, but it looked like the same one Cee Cee's aunt Pru had kept turning over when we'd been at her house. Had I made that happen? I wondered. Had it been because of me?

But I was certainly no great shakes as a conductor of souls. I mean, look how badly I'd messed up the whole thing with Doc's mom.

On the other hand, I had figured it out eventually. And along the way, I'd helped stop a murderer....

Maybe I wasn't quite as bad at this mediating thing as I thought.

I was sitting there in the middle of my bed, trying to figure out what I should do with the card - Pin it to my door? Or would that generate too many curious questions? Tape it up inside my locker? - when somebody banged on my bedroom door.

"Come in," I said.

The door swung open and Dopey stood there.

"Hey," he said. "Dinner's ready. Dad says for you to come downst - Hey." His normally idiotic expression turned into a grin of malicious delight. "Is that a cat?"

I glanced at Spike. And swallowed.

"Um," I said. "Yeah. But listen, Dope - I mean, Brad. Please don't tell your - "

"You," Dopey said, "are … so … busted."